Category Archive:Love

Mastering the Balance

Barbara post on May 15th, 2013
Posted in Communication, Family, Fear, Listening, Love, Meditation, Perception, Spirituality

Mastering the balance between accepting life as it is and realizing that our thoughts create our reality is a life-long endeavor. Many modern-day gurus and life coaches of all stripes are quick to tell us that everything we experience we create. I’m not disputing that the essence of what they say is true, but I believe life is more complex than that. To expect to have the power to manifest everything that happens in the web of life that becomes real around us will make us either arrogant or drench us in self-loathing and guilt, or both.

Some events just are. People we love get sick or die. They lose businesses or jobs because of the economy - not their performance. They get into awful situations because of choices they make. Or they get in awful situations for being at the wrong place at the wrong time (think tragedies great and small that victimize so many). And then there are the times Mother Nature wallops some people and whole communities with her awesome power. The best we can do in such situations is find whatever strength they bring out in us—or those around us—as we seek the grace, lessons, and sometimes even blessings in them.

Growing Out of the Brokenness

What we can manifest is our own best selves. So many things in our lives aren’t much more than potential; a whole host of possibilities. And how we think about them materializes one possibility out of all that potential that exists. At such times, how we think is EVERYTHING. If we expect goodness, awesomeness, love, success, and beauty, and focus our thoughts on those possibilities then that is what we’ll manifest. If we expect more pain, failure, disappointment, loss, and rejection, and our thoughts dance with a host of What-ifs fueled by fear, then we will manifest exactly what we focus our thoughts upon.

The more our thoughts develop from our love, the more likely we create the outcome we desire. This is true whether we’re in control of the circumstances or not. How we think our thoughts is a habit. And it is also a choice day-by-day, moment-by-moment.

Loving thoughts leave little room for fear-filled thoughts. So today, as much as possible, focus your thoughts on love. Change what you can and look for the love in what you can’t.

 

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Ancient & Modern Communication Meet: Texting Prayers

Barbara post on April 15th, 2013
Posted in Communication, Family, Love, Meditation, Prayer, Spirituality

Every morning since October 6, 2012, I’ve been texting prayers to my cousin as she works her way through a really tough time. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to do this. It just sort of happened and the weird part about it is that it happened at a distressing point in my own spiritual life; a time when I was praying daily into an abyss. Unmoored and questioning the nature of faith itself – prayer was a conundrum for me.

Yet I continued the daily ritual and added to my cousin via text. And in the process I began to experience healing grace. For as I assured my cousin of God’s presence, God began to resurrect for me in an unfamiliar yet unmistakably God-like way. And given what I know—and more importantly what I know I don’t know—this part of my spiritual journey has become a curiosity to be observed rather than analyzed (since I can’t quite figure it out anyway), a gift to be savored.

Perhaps at some point when I’m ready to move on from observation and choose to analyze again, I will answer the questions that trouble me. But not yet. When I’m ready the question will still be here:

  • What is prayer . . . pure energy? Communication or communion with God? Sheer mystery? An action? A thought? A thought turned into reality via energy? Personal delusion? Communal hysteria?
  • What does prayer do . . . change our circumstances? Change our perception? Change us? Change the world? Bestow miracles? Engender grace?
  • What or who is God . . . Enlivening spirit? Creator of the universe? Dispenser of wishes like a great Santa-in-the-sky? Hands-off First Cause? Personal friend who hears my ranting? Pure Energy? The Center that is in all and is All?

I am no theologian. I enter into these questions as a person who from childhood was anchored by experiential faith that guided my life (yet I found no comfort in its silence in my darkest hour); a church goer who spent a lifetime of Sundays at Mass who now feels alienated and estranged from her church; a person who still cherishes the deep mystery of rituals and what they offer who senses no earthly community in which to share them.

But the ancient rituals of prayer remain and – other than love – have become my only spiritual mooring. And in familial love, I had the desire to reach out to my cousin to shine a hint of light into her darkness. Given the 1,000 miles that separate us, I decided texting was my way. So I text her prayers of love, trust, faith, and hope and one day I noticed that the light in those prayers reflected back into my darkness as well. I was texting her memories, ideas, and hopes that blossomed into my own reality.

The gift I offered her was returned to me and assures me of some sort of Divinity; one that I still call God even though I can’t define exactly what that means. The scriptures of my childhood tell me to knock and the door will be opened. My morning texts remind me that the door opens every day.

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Sending Out Love or Hate Without A Single Word

Barbara post on March 7th, 2013
Posted in Body Language, Communication, Fear, Forgiveness, Health, Love, Perception

Have you ever wondered why you are instantly attracted to, or repelled by, some people? We’ve all met people who send out “vibes” that make us want to stay close and others whose vibes make us want to run away . . . quick.

Those “vibes” have now been scientifically located and are measurable. It turns out that research by the Institute of HeartMath has found that an electromagnetic field emanating from our heart is the source. Some people really do have “good vibes” (or bad ones) that the rest of us readily feel.

The brain in your heart

We’ve long known that the heart operates through electrical impulses. EKGs (electrocardiograms) have been measuring them for decades, diagnosing or monitoring how the heart functions.

But now more sensitive instruments used by neurocardiologists have shown that the heart isn’t just merely a pump that keeps our blood flowing. It is also a complex sense organ that processes information with its own brain-like “nervous system” that learns, remembers, and makes decisions independently of the brain in our head. And our heart’s “brain” routinely communicates with the higher centers involved with processing emotions, learning, and perception in head’s brain.

The “Vibes” of emotion

But the magic doesn’t end there. The heart’s “nervous system” also communicates information within and outside the body through the heart’s powerful electromagnetic field. Researchers have been able to measure this field up to five feet away.

Why is this important? The ancients long ago posited that emotions began in the heart. But whether they begin in the heart or the brain, the heart reacts to them sending signals, chemicals, and energy not only throughout the body but beyond it too.

Positive emotions like love and compassion create rhythmic, orderly heartbeat patterns and negative emotions like anger create erratic, disordered heartbeat patterns. These differing patterns spread throughout the entire body and into the world through the heart’s electromagnetic field. This has not only health consequences but social consequences as well.

Emotions radiate out

That our emotions affect the functioning of our bodies is not new information. But that they alter our heart’s electromagnetic field in a way that affects our interactions with other people up to five feet away without any other sort of communication is kind of startling. Perhaps this is an explanation for crowd behavior.

Imagine the different behaviors generated when one person’s heart sends out ordered, rhythmic, “loving” patterns of energy that are communicated to, and synchronized with others versus the angry or fearful person’s erratic, disordered, chaotic patterns of energy.

Do you know what kind of pattern is your heart sending out? We might be able to fool the brain in our head and deny our own perception about what we’re feeling but I doubt we can fool the brain in our heart.

The energy from your heart fills the world

The emotions that fill our hearts fill our worlds. So what is in your heart? Fear, judgment, criticism, anger, and frustration? Or love, compassion, forgiveness, calm and peace? That’s what we’re spreading not only by what we say, how we look, or what we do but also through the electromagnetic field that radiates directly from “the seat of our soul” . . . our heart.

Holding the energy of each other’s hearts is an awesome responsibility. Will you do anything different today knowing that your emotions may change everything?

 

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A Valentine’s Day Greeting

Barbara post on February 14th, 2013
Posted in Family, Forgiveness, Love, Prayer, Spirituality

I’m guessing that most Valentine’s Day greetings today will be from one person to another. I’d like to share what I think is a close approximation to the kind of love greeting that, if we were silent enough long enough, we might hear from our Source today.

For this greeting, I’ve taken a few liberties from the opening lines of one of my all-time favorite prayers whose authorship remains a mystery to me. I have no idea if it was written by St. Ignatius of Loyola, some other Jesuit, or Jacqueline Syrup Bergan & S. Marie Schwan the authors of the book Take & Receive: Love a Guide for Prayer (the book in which I first encountered the prayer many years ago).

If these words were in a greeting card, I imagine the scene on the card would be something beautiful in nature; a grand tree, an ocean scene, a wondrous flower, a delicate butterfly.  It would be something pastoral that would set your mind ready to hear the following words from your Creator:

Mark Groves photo of a sunset

Yaquina Head Lighthouse At Sunset by Mark Groves www.MarkGroves.us

When my love spilled over into creation, I thought of you. You are from love, of love, for love. . . May your heart always recognize, cherish, and enjoy the goodness in all creation. It is my gift . . .My love created that too . . . especially for you.

These few sentences hold all we need to live in truth and freedom. We are the physical manifestation of the Great Spirit’s overflowing love. We were created out of love and we are designed for love. The Maker of all things had a loving thought, spoke the creative word, and all that we see in the universe spilled forth from love.

When we are able to accept that truth, we can cast off fear and live out of the love that flows naturally in us. We forgive, we have patience, we trust ourselves – others – life – Spirit.

Those of lucky enough to have created a child or those who have selflessly devoted themselves to the needs of another have an approximation of this kind of love. It is powerful. Awe inspiring. Generative.

None-the-less, in our imperfect humanity, our woundedness, it is hard to remember this deep well of love that created us and flows within us and out of us. We can forget this powerful energy and fall into criticism of ourselves and others as a knee-jerk reaction to the daily struggles of human life. We often don’t take even a moment to reflect on why we’ve lost that loving feeling; we simply react out of our disappointment, impatience, failure, or anger.

But days like today remind us of the enormous healing power of love. Love heals the vagaries of life. On this one day of the year devoted solely to love, it is a good time to remember that you began as a loving thought that could not be contained.  Revel in this love and share it with anyone and everyone you meet.

Happy Valentines Day ♥

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Values. Relationship. Conflict.

Barbara post on February 6th, 2013
Posted in Communication, Family, Listening, Love, Perception

Values. . . we often assume we know what we mean when we bandy about terms like American values, Christian values, Progressive values, and family values. Yet the words we use to describe our values can have different meanings for different people, even the people closest to us. When values collide, conflict arises.

Since February is the month for love, it’s also a good time to reflect on how values affect the relationships closest to us as well as those in the wider community of world and work.sand heart

The relationships that tend to have the least amount of conflict are the ones in which people share not just affinity – in community/work relationships – or love – in close relationships - but similar values too.

The sign of an emotionally mature relationship is when those involved remain unthreatened and maintain love or respect even when values differ.

The thing is, we tend to assume we share values with people we like so we can feel betrayed when we find out the truth.

One stumbling block to longevity in relationships is that attraction between two people is often so powerful that discussions revealing core values can be side-stepped (or clouded in fantasy) because feelings are so strong.

While attraction is a great beginning, lasting relationships develop from the give and take necessary to keep love or respect alive in the real world.

The art of compromise

The trick to this art is compromising only that which is non-essential to the core of your being, the essence of who you are. It may be that you haven’t recently reflected deeply on what is most important to you, what is absolutely non-negotiable and what you can compromise or let go of for the sake of the relationship.

In any relationship—whether in marriage, friendship, family, community, or work—clarity about shared verses individual values reduces conflict. When you know which values you share versus the ones you individually own, you can choose to agree to disagree, or challenge, probe, or embrace eachother’s values.

Name it; own it

This short exercise will help you name what you value. Naming things makes them real and allows us to deal with them. The exercise includes a list of values, but not a comprehensive one. Feel free to add some of your own. It’s a great discussion starter. I suggest sharing it with your beloved and then discussing your similarities and differences.

Keep in mind as you complete the exercise (less than 10 minutes) that many items in the center circle—non-negotiable values— can represent a bit of inflexibility that could result in numerous conflicts. Conversely, if there are too few items in the center circle you could fall prey to the adage those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.

And when you’re deciding what is negotiable or not, remember to think of how each value plays out in the real world rather than what sounds good. For example, if both freedom and safety are values you hold dear when and how will you allow safety to trump freedom? If honesty is a non-negotiable value does that mean you say everything you believe without regard to other’s feelings?

These questions and more are likely to come up in discussions so don’t just share this with your beloved.  Share it also with friends, family members, and even coworkers.

You’ll be surprised by how much you thought was true about someone is not true at all. Treasure the journey of discovery.

Values Clarification exercise

 

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A New Year of love and hope

Barbara post on December 31st, 2012
Posted in Love, Spirituality, Vocation

sunrise sunsetThought for the day from writer and theologian Frederick Beuchner:

The vocation for you is the one in which your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet—something that not only makes you happy but that the world needs to have done . . . The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done . . . The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

December 31st is a day to reflect on the life we live. Are we living a life of deep gladness? Are we doing the kind of work that fills the world’s deepest need? In other words, are we living a life that matters to either ourselves or the world beyond us?

The world has this lovely habit of pressing the reset button once every year. With all its triumphs and tragedy, 2012 is over. Done. Whoever we did or didn’t love, whatever we did or didn’t accomplish will never happen again in 2012.

But what would 2013 be like if you lived a life that expressed your deep gladness—whatever that may be—so that you could address the world’s (or probably more accurately your world’s) deep need? If each of us took care of our little corner of the world expressing our deepest love using our unique gifts, the whole world would shift.

The wisdom in this simple admonition to do what you love to do in service to the world could be the antidote to so many of the problems we experience collectively today. As John Lennon once sang, Love is all you need.

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